On 17/11/2008 GravityHound wrote:>I built a rack so I could take my mountain bike on the back of my motorbike.>XC bike was OK. downhill bike was a bit too much though. get some interesting>looks and havent ridden past a cop yet so not sure how legal it is though.

Make a clamp that takes your front fork and lets the rear wheel trail behind like a trailer.

G'day all, I'm actually more of a motorcyclist getting into bouldering/climbing for some exercise. More often to be found on advrider.com ... Honda XLV750R ...
Agree with Mr. M9 ... hard topbox, soft panniers are the way to go.
I think hard panniers, especially the big aluminium boxes, are prone to breaking legs in otherwise minor lie-downs.

Guys wear your gear everywhere. Dropped mine on thursday about 100m from home on a corner that a truck had dropped oil on. front wheel hit the oil and down i went everything is good with me and the bike lost a bit of bark off both but still all fine cause i had my gear on. Kevlar pants, gloves, jacket, gloves they do work.

Agree with the gear. We just bought a new GS500F & hit a kangaroo doing 100 clicks on our first long run. Two of us and the bike slid about 20 meters. Fortunately we were wearing full leathers so no major damage to us. $4300 damage to the bike & kangaroo stone cold dead.

On 17/11/2008 DrDan wrote:>To anyone who has EVER wondered how they'd get their surfboard or boogey>board to the beach on their 2 wheeler.... DON'T!!

I built a rack such that the boards sat on the bike oriented nose to front/fins to back just on the outside of my left or right leg (2 different bikes), worked fine for 10 years then I split for Europe. Since the move to CH I've set up the same rig for a bouldering pad.

On 23/11/2008 Duncan wrote:>>Hey sharkey, can you explain how hard panniers break legs?

In offroad situations, if you "dab" your boot into the ground in the process of trying not to fall, then fall anyway, it's easy to get your lower leg trapped between the leading edge of the pannier and the ground ... if you're using the big rectangular boxes this puts a lot of force into the middle of your lower leg. The ones without the front corner lower corner spread the force over a bigger area, so it's less of a problem.

There's no hard science there, just an opinion. Plenty of people have ridden around the world with big square-arse panniers and never had any problems ...

On 22/11/2008 Duncan wrote:>I got a brand new Suzuki GS500 for $6990 on the road. I pick it up next>Saturday - it's going to be a long week.

... week is all but over now.

If the weather is still rainy take it easssy on the road comrade.
... In fact that applies to new tyres anyway for the first 100 km (imo), due new rubber is often quite slick till roughed up a bit with some wear.

Though it isn't that far to travel for me, I am looking forward to riding to Mt Buffalo to climb with VCC this w/end.
Love the hills and corners ...

Buff is a queer place weather wise and one has to combine two district forecasts to approximate it for that location.

NE district weather forecast.

Forecast for Saturday
Becoming cloudy. Isolated showers during the evening. Winds west to
southwesterly averaging 10 to 15 km/h, reaching 20 km/h at times, tending
westerly up to 30 km/h during the afternoon. Overnight temperatures falling to
around 15 with daytime temperatures reaching 23 to 28.

Forecast for Sunday
Sunny day. Winds west to southwesterly averaging 15 to 25 km/h tending south to
southwesterly up to 20 km/h later in the evening. Overnight temperatures
falling to around 11 with daytime temperatures reaching between 18 and 24.

Forecast for Sunday
Sunny day. Isolated showers early in the morning. Winds westerly averaging 15 to 25 km/h, reaching 40 km/h at times, tending southeast to southwesterly up to 20 km/h by early evening. Overnight temperatures falling to around 7 with daytime temperatures reaching between 11 and 18.

On 5/12/2008 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:>~> Hmm. sounds like the ride weather will be good, (up Sat morning and return Sunday arvo), but the climbing in between could be weather ordinary, ~> should be an adventure!

The weather turned out pretty well. It was nice to meet you and put a face to the posts. Hope your climbing and riding went well.

Very much enjoyed the trip, and the climbing/riding did indeed go well*.
(* Except for taking an unexpected fall while leading Banana Blase due to sloppy footwork, but I have learnt more than one thing from that experience, so all is good. Made up for it by finishing the lead, then doing a couple of laps from chalet to Eurobin Ck bridge at base of hill, just for the fun of the corners).

>It was nice to meet you and put a face to the posts.
You must have been the second 'a' I met on that trip out of three (?) who attended, so now I also have a vague face to put to your posts. Good to meet you too, not that we got to spend much time conversing, as I met a lot of new folk that w/end.

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Post edit for a comment in the future!>On an unrelated note, your PM box is full.
Thanks.
Have now cleared some space.

On 8/12/2008 IdratherbeclimbingM9 wrote:>>It was nice to meet you and put a face to the posts.>You must have been the second 'a' I met on that trip out of three (?) who attended, so now I also have a vague face to put to your posts.

That sounds about right, I was to substitute firebug while Tony was resting his ankle. There's a picture of me on here somewhere, though as of this morning the Movember mo is finally gone...

A couple of days out from having done some climbing involving thin flake laybacks / underclings / sideclings & pinch holds; (ie more than the usual technique-fare found at Buffalo, of smearing - crimping or jamBing); ... combined with a lot of clutch work while going up and down through gear changes due playing on the hill (more than once); ... I now have tight / slightly sore to fully close, first joints, particularly on my left (clutch), hand !
Not to be unexpected I guess, but I notice that it is different to the general finger fatigue I have previously experienced that goes with heaps of jumaring for example.
Good thing I am not a boulderer eh? ~> would be the pits constantly having shredded fingertips to contend with I reckon!
Of similar flavour, the forearm pump from bracing against the handlebars during heavy braking (particularly going downhill), is quite different to that obtained while on a climb ...

~> All up, a good kind of fatigue feeling from the weekend!

Different observation.
Although not a sport bike by any means, I find my bikes performance is way better than the many Harley Davidsons that were out and about on the hill that w/end. With stuff-all ground clearance and cruiser steering geometry*, they were constantly running wide on corners. A real concern for anyone coming the other way ...